martedi 8 novembre 2005 Consorzio COMETA “Progetto PI2S2” FESR The Consorzio COMETA and its Grid Activities in Sicily Antonio Puliafito University of Messina Grid Industry Day Catania,

martedi 8 novembre 2005 Consorzio COMETA “Progetto PI2S2” FESR Why is GRID a priority area? Facilitates the interconnection of a large range of heterogeneous devices to the Internet and enables the delivery of a new class of services. Strengthens the role of the network in providing anywhere, anytime an immense variety of services to the user. In this way it leads to a closer convergence between computing and communication technologies. Makes computing and data resources which are distributed worldwide available seamlessly as a single resources via the Internet.

martedi 8 novembre 2005 Consorzio COMETA “Progetto PI2S2” FESR Application areas Aeronautics Astronomy Astrophysics Bioinformatics Chemistry Climatology Cosmology Earth observations Earthquake studies E-learning Environmental management Fluid dynamics Genomics Geology High energy physics Industrial design Medicine Metereology Molecular engineering Pharmacology As a matter of fact GRID technology is still confined to a very restricted scientific environment

martedi 8 novembre 2005 Consorzio COMETA “Progetto PI2S2” FESR ● Creation of a strong research community on Grid research ● Europe’s position strengthened in Grid middleware development ● Grid concept proven in eScience application pilots ● First steps taken towards maturing Grid technologies for industrial use ● Strengthened European contribution to standardisation ● Grid deployment in research infrastructures Achievements of EU Grid Research

martedi 8 novembre 2005 Consorzio COMETA “Progetto PI2S2” FESR e-Science Grid ● Multi-organisation, multi-site model ● Virtualised compute resource being shared amongst its users, each typically doing compute-intensive, analysis type calculations. ● Privacy, security, data location, price and reliability are lesser concerns

martedi 8 novembre 2005 Consorzio COMETA “Progetto PI2S2” FESR Industry and Business Grid ● Located within a single organisation and typically within a single site ● Virtualisation of resources is viewed at the higher level of applications and business services ● Short, sharp business transactions are the norm rather than long running, compute intensive jobs ● A key driving force in this model is consolidation of services and the cost reductions that it can bring ● Standards, such as Web Services, play a key role in this model with data location, privacy, security and reliability being key concerns.

martedi 8 novembre 2005 Consorzio COMETA “Progetto PI2S2” FESR Promote Grid research to  Move Grid from e-Science to Industry  Solve new complex problems with high economic and societal impact e-Science Industry & Business Grids Grid Research - the Challenge

martedi 8 novembre 2005 Consorzio COMETA “Progetto PI2S2” FESR Societal behaviour (millions of self-organising nodes) Computational semantics, ontologies, meta- descriptions Pervasive virtual organisations Virtualization Architectural Vision End-user empowerment Life-support to business processes Simplification Continuously changing requirements Grid services development environments Abstraction “Next Generation Grid(s) - European Grid Research ”, June 2003 “Next Generation Grids 2 – Requirements and Options for European Grids Research 2005–2010 and beyond”, August 2004 Next Generation Grid(s) – Expert Group Report 3- fold vision

martedi 8 novembre 2005 Consorzio COMETA “Progetto PI2S2” FESR Grid research vision and beyond Building the Invisible Grid Building the Invisible Grid Mastering ICT complexity Mastering ICT complexity Grids of mobile and embedded systems Grids of mobile and embedded systems From to self-healing systems From to self-healing systems From plug & play to connect & share From plug & play to connect & share Meta Operating System architecture Meta Operating System architecture Knowledge at the fingertips Knowledge at the fingertips Grid empowers AmI (Ambient Intelligence) Towards a Global Grid Services Infrastructure for Business & Industry CtrlAltDel ++ network-centric person-centric local global AmI AmI +Grid

martedi 8 novembre 2005 Consorzio COMETA “Progetto PI2S2” FESR Situation in Europe – Grid Research is strong but fragmented – Weaknesses identified related to commercial exploitation of Grid research by European industry – Sustainability is a crucial issue V Framework Program: 20 Grid projects, 50 M€ Grid is the engine of the European Research Area (ERA) VI Framework Program: > 250 M€ for Grids and testbeds VII Framework Program: e-Infrastruttures and Grid explicitly mentioned as an enabling technology

martedi 8 novembre 2005 Consorzio COMETA “Progetto PI2S2” FESR gLite: the new middleware The EGEE gLite middleware will substitute LCG-2 in Europe and world wide. It solves some of the main limits of LCG-2 and provides new advanced services to the applications It is based on Web Services, Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) and is conform to international standards Globus 2 based Web services based gLite-2gLite-1LCG-2LCG-1

martedi 8 novembre 2005 Consorzio COMETA “Progetto PI2S2” FESR What is going on in Italy ● MIUR has financed projects on GRID for ~ 30 M€: – Grid.IT, 3+1 years 12 M€ ( ), Coord. CNR ● R&D on next generation tools: Programming environ., Information Sys. ● National production e-Infrastructure for Italian Science Institutions – S-PACI National project 3+1 years 4 M€ ( ) ● The grid infrastructure in the South of Italy – Egrid National project 3 years 3 M€ ( ) ● The Grid for finance – LIBI and LITBIO 3 years 7 M€ ( ) ● The Grid Laboratory for Bio-informatics ● Recently ~30 M€ for Grids and Supercomp. through 4 PON approved in Sicily, Sardinia, Campania(2) ● PNR projects under evaluation

martedi 8 novembre 2005 Consorzio COMETA “Progetto PI2S2” FESR Grid sustainability in Europe and Italy ● EGEE proposes to create the European Grid Organization to: ● Guarantee the development and long term support of the european e- infrastructure made of EGEE, DEISA and the Grid national projects ● Provide coordination at the EU level, similarly to what has happened with Geant, DANTE and NREN, such as GARR ● INFN proposes to create the Association for the Italian Grid Infrastructure (IGI) to: ● Include all the Institutions involved in national e-infrastructures ● Substain a pletora of scientific disciplines: Phisic, Astrophisicsm Biology, Medicine, Chemistry, Geophisic, Economy, Finance, with extensions to other areas such as crisis management and e-learning

martedi 8 novembre 2005 Consorzio COMETA “Progetto PI2S2” FESR TRIGRID and PI2S2: The Sicilian GRID Infrastructure ● Creation of the first Sicilian GRID infrastructure for scientific and industrial applications (Overall budget 15 M€) ● Integration with the Italian and European GRIDs to foster and improve the scientific collaboration and the competitiveness of regional PMI, both at national and internation level ● Porting of scientific and industrial applications on the GRID ● Dissemination of the “GRID paradigm” through events and training courses to people of the private and public area, also not directly involved in such projects ● Support to spin-off initiatives

martedi 8 novembre 2005 Consorzio COMETA “Progetto PI2S2” FESR ~ € in 3 year ! ~250 man years ! (2/3 for new employees) More than 1500 CPU More than 450 TBytes The Sicilian e-Infrastructure

martedi 8 novembre 2005 Consorzio COMETA “Progetto PI2S2” FESR The COMETA Consortium (

martedi 8 novembre 2005 Consorzio COMETA “Progetto PI2S2” FESR Work Packages WP1Design and creation of a GRID infrastructure WP2 Middleware integration with design and development of test procedures WP3 Hardware and software platforms for dissemination and training WP4 Development and integration of applications in the GRID PI2S2: Progetto per l’Implementazione e lo Sviluppo di una e-Infrastruttura in Sicilia basata sul paradigma della grid (

martedi 8 novembre 2005 Consorzio COMETA “Progetto PI2S2” FESR Main Industrial Applications IR&T engineering –Cultural heritage Numidia srl –Fluid dynamic simulation in car engines –Chemical, thermo dynamic, electromagnetic simulations SCIRE – FIAT auto –Simulation of aerodynamics problems –Fluid dynamics optimization Italcompany e Microsol –Using the Fluent software tool in the grid Seasoft –Document management and workflow Inquadro srl –Software performance analysis –Grid for multimedia streaming Hitec2000 srl –Simulation of critical working conditions –Cultural heritage Areas of interest 4.5Engineering 4.6Physics and astrophysics 4.7Earth science 4.8Bio-Informatics 4.9Chemistry

martedi 8 novembre 2005 Consorzio COMETA “Progetto PI2S2” FESR Human capital and expertise ● More than 40 software developers hired till now ● Continuous training on computing infrastructure and middleware ● Frequent contacts with potential users to open the GRID to non-specialists

martedi 8 novembre 2005 Consorzio COMETA “Progetto PI2S2” FESR Exploitation and Sustainability issues COMETA Big Industries Public Administration Research Institutions SMEs Supporting spin-off initiatives to contribute to the diffusion of Grid knowledge

martedi 8 novembre 2005 Consorzio COMETA “Progetto PI2S2” FESR Collaboration with ORACLE ● Further investigate the accountability problem at large (including Grid Licensing Scheme, Service Level Agreement – SLA-, Quality of Service – QoS); ● Set a pilot project and proof-of-concepts where services offered by PI2S2 are tracked and accounted; ● Define best-practices in the accountability area; ● Integrate results of the joint activity in Oracle’s product and possibly in some public documentation. ● Create a competence centre on Oracle Technology in the South of Italy. ● Position COMETA as a service provider on the medium long term for the R&D and SME world ● Benefiting from increased visibility at national and international level

martedi 8 novembre 2005 Consorzio COMETA “Progetto PI2S2” FESR Collaboration with MICROSOFT ● Investigate on the use of collaborative tools like Microsoft ConferenceXP to broadcast live or pre-registered grid training events of PI2S2 Project. ● COMETA conference venue and virtual room already created:

martedi 8 novembre 2005 Consorzio COMETA “Progetto PI2S2” FESR Conclusions ● Grids are the enabling platform to create the European Research Area (ERA) and promote the scientific and industrial research to build a critical mass in many heteroeneous sectors ● e-Infrastructures contribute to widen access to knowledge with a new market for IT applications ● Future sustainability of e-Infrastructures is a crucial issue to exploit long term development of technology and industrial and commercial level ● Concrete interest of the industrial world towards the GRID: specific activities being set up

martedi 8 novembre 2005 Consorzio COMETA “Progetto PI2S2” FESR Antonio Puliafito Ph: Fax: Cell: CONTACTS